John Joe Rice
John Joe Rice was a soldier during the Irish revolutionary period and Sinn Féin politician in the 1950s.
Born in Kilmurry, Kenmare, County Kerry, Rice was a railway worker who joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913. At the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence, he became Officer Commanding of the 5th Battalion of the Kerry No. 2 Brigade, a unit he would also command during the Irish Civil War, where they fought as part of the Anti-Treaty IRA.
He was elected as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for the Kerry South constituency at the 1957 general election. He did not take his seat in the Dáil, for Sinn Féin ran on an abstentionist ticket. He was one of four Sinn Féin TDs elected at the 1957 general election, the others being Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, John Joe McGirl and Eighneachán Ó hAnnluain. During his time as a TD he campaigned against the Special Powers Act, which granted the Irish state extra abilities to deal with and punish suspected members of the IRA. He was defeated at the 1961 general election.
In 1966, he and fellow Kerry Republican John Joe Sheehy were expelled from Sinn Féin, as were many others, by the new Marxist-Leninist party leadership that had recently come into power. This move both foreshadowed and fuelled the split in 1969/1970 of both the IRA and Sinn Féin, which led to the creation of the Marxist-Leninist Official IRA and the more traditional but still left-wing Provisional IRA, and in parallel Sinn Féin - The Workers' Party and "Provisional" Sinn Féin. Rice gave his support to the Provisionals.
He died on 1 July 1970.
